For You
by Clarra-Night
Summary: Not really sure what to say about this one, but it involves childhood memories and an odd sentence for Loki's punishment.


**_Author's Notes: Not exactly sure about this one, but decided to post it to see if improvements could be suggested_**

**_I listened to "I Love You Forever" by Two Steps From Hell when writing this, and hope you enjoy_**_** it, nonetheless :)**_

**_Told from second-person, Thor's POV. The italicised parts are memories from when Loki and Thor were children, and the last part is the present perspective, after Loki's assault on Midgard and being taken back to Asgard_**

* * *

_The pair of large green eyes and impish smile like a tilted quarter moon fades away as you splash dishwater at your little brother. The freshly laundered aprons hanging like stage curtains behind him take the splattering instead._

_"The cooks will love that when they see them" _

_"That's cheating!" _

_The green eyes laugh and disappear behind a mountain of burnished copper pots as you spiritedly send more soapy water flying around, his soft snickers wandering from around different gleaming towers of the kitchenette cauldron city. Small puddles bloom like tiny lakes on the marble fields of scullery bench and floor until you send a final soapy fountain above your golden head for fun. _

_"We would not be stuck with this punishment if you knew how to share!" _

_The green eyes peer over the horizon of a silver saucepan rim. "It's hardly my fault Mother didn't realize you meant school work answers, Brother"_

_He darts to his side of the ginormous sink and places his stack of dirty plates into your half. _

_"But here, these are all for you!" _

_He doesn't even need to duck for the spray of soapsuds you fling at him to sail over his head. The late morning light streams in through the high arched window above in clear, gentle ribbons that wrap around you both, and the two sets of laughter is the only important sound in the golden day as you continue washing together, side by side. _

* * *

_The room is clean and cloud-white, the ceiling high and domed, the footsteps bustling but hushed. Two children occupy a bed among the dozens of others lined in orderly rows._

_"… How are you feeling?"_

_Your sullen glare from under gold hair meets the unfazed probing gaze from beneath the eventide-coloured fringe at your side._

_"I did not lose the battle, Brother!"_

_A laughing little crescent moon smile rises in reply and your bedside companion simply stops swinging his slight legs above the Healing Room floor and jumps down from the snowy-white bed. _

_"I don't know if Father's still expecting me back, but the others will fear your ruthless wrath when you return, I'm sure" _

_Your glare follows the small figure out the golden doors, but is caught by something glinting and glassy sitting on the bedside table that had not been there earlier. _

_The jar of honey-hued sweets has a note propped carefully against it, and your brother's writing is careful and tidy, as if he had prepared it beforehand._

All for you

* * *

_Prod… Prod, prod… prod… _

_"Brother?"_

_You struggle open your eyelids blearily and blink through the cold darkness. The two green orbs in front of you hold the moonlight that doesn't lighten the fear that darkens their wide, childlike depths. _

_You gather the trembling shape forward to you without another word, and as the orbs find you in the gloom, you're relieved to see the horror being swept away. _

_The pair of you sit in consoling silence for some time in the night, and you're both so small in the blue-shadowed valleys of blankets that you don't realize when you huddle closer, it just seems so expected surrounded by all the darkness. After a while, the slight shape beside you simply curls up in exhaustion, and you follow. _

_"Aren't you cold?" You look down affectionately at your little brother's narrow frame resting on top of the covers. Dusk-shaded hair droops over the silhouette's face as it shakes its head._

_"No" a thin hand sleepily pushes the swathes of blankets towards you. "Here, they're all for you."_

_There's the soft whisper of bedspreads being settled, your wondering look at the small shadow bowed at your side, and the quiet breathing of the two of you in the passing night-tide._

_You both sleep softly and soundly the dreams away, until the morning light chases the rest of them off._

* * *

"… What?"

The sinking sun's coppery gold light above the vast marble hallway seems far too tranquil for this day, and for what you just heard. Far too rosy for the manacled ghost-like figure in front of you it's failing again to warm up.

You knew there must be punishment for what he had wrought, imprisonment at the least, but this was not what you had expected, nor even knew what could be possible.

"Inexistence. My sentence is banishment from this reality."

Your brother looks up at you calmly. Now, you can see clearly how the angles of his face had become sharper, his eyes even more piercing, and how all the pain and fear of fighting, hiding and running had crafted cold shadows over him.

But they could always be brushed off like worthless cobwebs, and he would still be there waiting underneath after all this time - your younger brother to everyone else, but also still your _little_ brother behind everything besides. You feel the horrified fear beginning to drag down your heart, and a lump beginning to rise in your throat.

"… How is that possible?" You can barely get the words out, and the twin green moons in front of you are painfully sharp and bright as they watch this struggling silence without judgment, and he replies quietly.

"Through magic. I'll be shepherded to the edge of this existence–"

"You will die-?"

"No, this is not exactly an ordinary execution." His pale hand waves away the horrible words, and the soft light dances across the tips of his fingers. A quiet breeze passes between the two of you gently, and you don't understand how anything can be so calm now.

"I will not be dead, but neither living in this reality. I'll be forced from this existence, but not allowed into another, and cannot die, because nor will I be alive."

You never realized how hard you are finding it to breathe, and he just waits with watchful eyes while you form a response.

_Your little brother is going to be locked out of all realities...?_

"… So I will never see you again, even after this?"

A sad smile is barely there, and as he lifts his face to observe the falling sun, the expression faintly lingers around the edges before settling. "Better that than forever seeing me wrongly, wouldn't you say?"

"Do not-"

Before you can further speak, two guards, you can't see exactly who — there's an unexpected prickling behind your eyes and your vision has suddenly become blurred — grip him by both arms (their metal gloved hands look so unnecessarily armored holding his narrow frame) and take your little brother further down the enormous passage where the kingly figure on the golden throne waits.

Your father looks down at him, the sun cresting the top of a crumbling palace, and announces the final judgment that you don't hear – maybe you don't let yourself; there's a strangely frozen muteness enveloping you – before raising a hand to cast the terrible exile.

Whatever silence blanketed you earlier, the next words somehow slip through.

"Do you not regret what you have done?"

It isn't an enunciated, ceremonial request for a convict's apology, but rather the judge demanding to know what he would say without the formalities, the words spoken one-on-one to etch a divide between the two of them and the murmuring, spectating crowds.

A head is shaken, and dusk-shaded hair hides the pair of guarded green eyes, but then a chin is lifted, and they meet the gaze above them unwaveringly.

"No, I don't, but I had still been sorry, if that would ever count for anything."

There was never much chance that any justification would be taken anyway, lies or otherwise. Hadn't the condemned always known it was always too late?

So before the magic is cast, before the eviction falls, before he is cut off from you, he just finds you.

Your little brother finds you, past the rest of the world, and he looks at you with the large green eyes from ducking behind burnished copper pots, from at your cloud-white bedside and honey-hued sweets, from huddling closer in blue-shadowed valleys through the passing night-tide, and he smiles like the last trace of the moon before time would fade it away.

His lips move slightly, and the words somehow reach you even when he's gone.

_"It was all for you."_

…

* * *

_**Author's Notes: So, I hope you enjoyed it, but thank you very much for reading, anyhow! Let me know how to improve it, please? ^.^ **_


End file.
